I have tried the 2.6.2-ben1 kernel from bitkeeper and have the strange experience of the kernel loading wonderfully, detecting all the hardware, but then after the USB-Stuff, not calling init/rc!
So no further booting.
No oops or any other message, it simply stops.

I think I saw a similar problem with the 2.6.1 benh kernel. It would freeze during boot. I got it working by building a basic kernel with few options turned on and then gradually turning on
more options. The kernel freeze turned out to be a problem with the real time clock and temperature sensor code. For whatever reasons I had to build them as modules and now the kernel works well.